When a called party receives a telephone call from a calling party, the called party often desires some form of identification of the calling party and/or calling party number in order to decide whether or not they want to take the call. For example, many people will not answer a telephone call if their caller line identification (CLID) displays that the calling party identifier information is “unavailable,” “unknown,” “private” or the like. Even if a call is answered by a called party, the calling party identifier information is useful for contacting the calling party where the called party decides to call the calling party back at a later time.
The caller line identification (CLID) service offered by telephone companies today provides a called party (subscribing to the CLID service) with identification information about a calling party. To date, the calling party identifier or CLID information has been limited to the information that the telephone company has in its own caller ID database for the line of the originating call. Specifically, if a call originates on a plain old telephone service (POTS) line, caller line ID (or CLID) is provided by the local service provider's switch (e.g. in a Calling Party Number Message). Typically, if a called party subscribes to a caller ID service, the called party will see at least the telephone number for the originating line (if available) and, in some instances, may also see an account name associated with that number if such account name is in a database used by the telephone company receiving or processing the call.
In some circumstances, it may be desirable for a calling party to convey customized CLID information to a certain called party. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/898,787 describes a method and system for call centers to present customized CLID information to a called party based on client calling campaigns and independent of the telephone line from which the call actually originated. Specifically, in this system, the CLID information presented to a called party corresponds to a customized CLID that is indicative of a business entity or client on behalf of which the call is being made. Other situations exist, however, where it may be desirable to provide a different CLID to a certain called party independent of the primary registered line associated with the originating call.